How to Be Awesome at Your Job

1015: The Science Behind Setting, and Achieving Your Biggest Goals with Caroline Miller

Dec 2, 2024

Caroline Miller, a leading positive psychology expert and author, dives into the science of goal setting. She dispels common myths and introduces two essential types of goals, emphasizing the importance of learning goals over performance goals. Discover the BRIDGE methodology, a structured approach to achieving ambitious objectives. Caroline also addresses challenges women face in goal setting and highlights the crucial link between happiness and success, offering practical tools for personal growth.

42:05

Episode guests

Caroline Adams Miller

AI Summary

AI Chapters

Episode notes

Podcast summary created with Snipd AI

Quick takeaways

Understanding the critical distinction between performance and learning goals enhances effective goal-setting strategies for achieving personal and professional success.

Abandoning the SMART acronym can lead to more ambitious and impactful goal achievements by embracing challenging, evidence-based approaches instead.

Deep dives

The Impact of Goal Setting on Productivity

Engaging in difficult tasks can significantly transform personal and societal productivity, as emphasized by recent Gallup findings indicating that a lack of effective goal systems is the primary issue facing workplaces. Proper understanding of goal setting theory can lead to more productive and engaged individuals, while misconceptions surrounding this science can hinder success. Many people struggle with large goals because they lack the resources and knowledge to break these goals down into manageable parts. Consequently, enhancing the understanding of goal setting can promote greater success in both professional and personal realms.

Intro

2min

The Science of Goal Setting

26min

Innovating Goal-Setting in Marketing

6min

The Essential Insights for Effective Goal Setting

3min

Holiday Shopping and Job Recruitment Strategies

2min

The Path to Happiness and Success

5min

Caroline Miller shares the overlooked science that helps you pursue your most ambitious goals.

— YOU’LL LEARN —

1) The top goal-setting myths to abandon immediately

2) The two types of goals and how to set them

3) The BRIDGE methodology for effective goal-setting

Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1015 for clickable versions of the links below.

— ABOUT CAROLINE —

For over three decades, Caroline Adams Miller has been a pioneer with her groundbreaking work in the areas of the science of goal setting, grit, happiness, and success. She is recognized as one of the world’s leading positive psychology experts on this research and how it can be applied to one’s life and work for maximum transformation.

She is the author of nine books, including My Name is Caroline, Getting Grit, Positively Caroline and Creating Your Best Life, which the "father of Positive Psychology," Dr. Martin Seligman, lauded in Flourish as "adding a major missing piece" to the world of goal setting. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and attained one of the first 32 degrees in the world in Applied Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

• Book: Big Goals: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life

• Book: Getting Grit: The Evidence-Based Approach to Cultivating Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose

• Book site: BigGoalsBook.com

• Child Mind Institute: ChildMind.org

• Website: CarolineMiller.com

— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW —

• Book: Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, Cass Sunstein

• Book: Woman's Inhumanity to Woman by Phyllis Chessler

• Study: “Benefits of Frequent Positive Affect” by Sonja Lyubomirsky, Laura King, Ed Diener

• Survey: VIA's Character Strengths Survey

• Tool: Perplexity

• Tool: Google Notebook